Floral skinny jeans

Here I am leaping into the floral jeans trend (not into the river, although Truffle did have a dip).

I bought this bright, stretch woven fabric a few weeks ago in the Textile Traders sale. I got one metre for only $5. Cheap pair of jeans hey?

I am not thrilled with the t-shirt, which I didn't make, so a bit of thought is needed on how to style these pants. Suggestions welcome!

Now, I had planned to use McCalls 6404, a leggings pattern, for these. But after the mediocre denim pants that resulted from my first attempt with this pattern I decided against using it this time. Instead, I drafted a new pattern using a great-fitting pair of RTW (ready-to-wear) pants and my tried and tested Jalie 2795 (UPDATE: this should be 2908) jeans pattern.

I traced the RTW pants very carefully, then compared the result to my Jalie pattern.

Correction: Jalie pattern is 2908

The shaky black line shows the outline of the Jalie pattern (pants back) and the even shakier yellow line is the RTW tracing. There is quite a difference in the shape of the back crotch curve. There is also a difference in the waist height, but this is partly explained by the fact that the Jalie jeans have a yoke (not seen here), while the RTW pants do not. Hmmm, interesting. The other notable difference was that the seams of the RTW pants were placed differently to the Jalie jeans, particularly the inner leg seam which was significantly further forward on the RTW pants. I don't know that this affects the final fit. I suspect probably not much.

Out of curiosity, I decided to just make the RTW pattern and compare it to my previous Jalie 2795 efforts.

So here it is. I only had a metre to squeeze this from, so I eliminated all pockets. I had just enough fabric to do a fly front and separate waistband. I think the fit is pretty good.

I should have made them longer though. I'll buy 1.1m next time!

Here is a picture of my denim Jalie jeans for fit comparison.

I think the less scooped back crotch curve of the floral jeans is more flattering than the deeper scoop of the Jalie jeans. The fit at the front is similar, although the Jalies are higher waisted (these denims were made from the higher waisted version of the pattern). The inner leg seams are just visible on the floral fabric but don't seem to impact the fit. On a plain fabric the forward-placed seams would be more visible and could be top-stitched in a contrasting thread for additional detail.

I think I like these and, once I work out what to wear with them, I'll wear these a lot before the fashion changes! The comparison of patterns was an interesting exercise (for a sewing nerd like me) and I am very pleased to have improved the fit at the back. Yay!